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"Sir," Skye said, and finished cutting the ropes so they fell. He nearly went with them, tipping sideways in the chair before she dropped the kitchen knife and caught his shoulder. "AC. C'mon, don't do this. Don't scare me."
"You called me sir," he slurred. His eyes weren't right as he tried to look up at her, pupils too big and expression too soft, unfocused. "You never call me sir."
"Well maybe I'm mad at you," she snapped. Her hands were shaking. Oh god. What was she supposed to-?
Pulse. Right.
She put her fingers on his neck. His skin felt clammy and chilled, sticking slightly to her fingers as she moved them around, looking for the spot. His skin and muscles bunched differently from Ward's, so it was a struggle to find the right spot. Or maybe that was her, the haze of panic making it hard to concentrate.
Ah, there. She made herself look away, down at her phone, and count beats as the long, agonizing seconds went by. She willed his heart to slow, but it didn't.
"Okay, we're leaving," she snapped after only 7 seconds. Too fast. That's what she'd tell Simmons. Too fast and then we got out of there.
She shoved her phone into her hoodie pocket and draped his suit jacket over his shoulders, because it was cold enough outside without him going jacket-less. At least they both still had their shoes.
Heaving him up onto her shoulder, she staggered. Damn, he was heavy.
"Packing some muscle there, AC?" she gasped as she got them upright. "When do you even have time to work out?"
"You're good for Ward," he mumbled. "He needs to someone to protect."
Skye snorted at the non-sequitur and heaved him forward, one painfully awkward step at a time. His legs wobbled and flopped, barely holding any weight.
"Yeah, well, he can protect you, right?"
"Please don't die," he said earnestly, and she stifled another snort before it could turn into a sob.
The hallways were empty. It was nearly dawn and everyone had finally crashed after an exciting day of kidnapping and interrogation, trusting electronic surveillance in a way SHIELD had taught her not to.
Every system can be hacked. Doubly true when the hacker was on the inside.
The door to the outside groaned as she shouldered it open, loud in the dim parking lot, fenced in by woods on every side except for a narrow road at one end. As they stumbled through the doorway, the morning air reached out to grope them with freezing fingers, drawing the warm breath out of her lungs and replacing it with tiny icicles. She shivered and tried to kick the door shut one-footed while still balancing Coulson, and ended up falling against the door with bruising force, the slam of it echoing through her whole body.
Oh shit.
Lola was off to the side of the lot, not yet disassembled to see what made her tick. Skye pretended she was running a three-legged race with a drunk and booked it, taking every bit of his weight that she could.
Getting him up into the passenger seat was a disaster, and the less said about that, the better.
("C'mon AC, got to get your seatbelt buckled, sit up for me, c'mon...")
By the time she leaped into the driver's seat, a light had flicked on inside the building and someone was moving around, slowly at first, then more urgently. She jabbed the key into the ignition and turned it, then reached over to snag Coulson's right hand and press his thumb to the tiny panel on the windshield wiper controls.
The engine turned over with a smooth purr. She almost cried with relief.
They tore out of the parking lot, leaving only rubber behind, and she committed herself to the twisting road between the trees, glaring at her rearview mirror as if she would be able to see anyone more than twenty feet behind her anyway. She took several hairpin turns almost at speed, feeling the edge of Lola's wheels slide into the narrow dirt strip on the side of the road. Watching Lola's headlights bounce wildly into the dark beneath the trees, she knew that if they wiped out, they'd be lucky to survive.
"Hey buddy, AC, no napping on me now." His head was lolling to the side, and she didn't like the color of his skin. "You gotta tell me how this lady works, okay? We need to not be here real soon now, and I wasn't watching close enough last time you - AC. Coulson. Phil."
Nothing.
She gripped the steering wheel harder, feeling the icy air whip past them. Her hair was streaming back, her eyes watering (only from the cold, honest). In the rearview mirror, she thought she saw a flash of light, like headlights.
"Help," she whispered.
"Help menu," said a woman's pleasant voice, low and a little husky, not at all flat or mechanical. "Option one, rear torpedos. Option two, radar imaging. Option three, distress signal. Option four, flight. Option five-"
"Four, four!" Skye glanced in the rearview mirror again. "And keep option one on the table, okay?"
"Unsafe to engage flight while moving."
"Are you kidding me?" She swerved, taking another curve at dangerous speeds, almost tipping up on two wheels. The tires wailed in protest.
"Uh, two! And three. Lots of three."
"I will send out distress signals once per sixty seconds on several frequencies."
"Yeah, okay, that will- whoooa!" The right side of the windshield was now traced with concentric green circles, one red dot in the middle and four yellow dots trailing below it. "Is that us? And are those my very former friends? Are they behind us? Please say they're behind us."
"Up is forward. Adversaries are located directly behind our position in close pursuit."
"Of course they are," Skye muttered, catching another glimpse of headlights in the side mirror. "Hey, so, this is totally not the time, but you can talk? Is your name actually Lola?"
"Yes."
Skye almost asked, 'which question was that an answer to,' when she realized why Coulson liked Lola so much. They were snark buddies. Coulson's snarky BFF was his car.
So many things were becoming clear.
...Like how fast her no-longer-pals were catching up to them.
"How are they going so fast? They have crappy SUVs that can't even corner without flipping!"
"If you'd like me take over?" Lola asked, in the overly polite, slightly disapproving way Skye associated with British butlers on PBS.
"Are you saying I'm a sucky driver?"
"They know this road. You don't. Also, you've never driven me before."
With a deep breath, Skye lifted her hands from the wheel. "All yours," she croaked. "I'm kinda trusting you with my life, so if you could not get us all killed, that would be really, really awesome."
"I'll do my best."
"Not reassuring."
Lola didn't respond, except by flooring it.
Skye squeaked (squeaked, not screamed, okay?) and closed her eyes, clutching her seat with both hands.
***
"He'll be fine. It's a known reaction to an improperly calibrated dosage of the drug they used to subdue him. We've got him stable and warm, and Agent May will get us to a SHIELD facility where he can be examined in under an hour." Her face changed, reassurance fading to concern. "But how about you? You looked pretty shaky when you climbed out of the car. Did they drug you, too?"
"No," Skye said. "No, I. I'm not a SHIELD agent. They didn't think I was a threat." Her tongue felt heavy with the half-lie in a way it hadn't since she was a kid, and her eyes were dry and aching.
"Skye," Simmons said gently, and looked like she might put a hand on Skye's arm, so Skye stepped back, putting more space between them.
"Man, I'm beat. If Coulson's all set, I'm gonna go crash. Get some shuteye before we touch down. Tiring morning running from bad guys and all that."
Simmons let her hand fall and nodded, turning back to the lab and Coulson lying still on the workbench, bundled in several blankets and attached to improvised monitors that displayed rows of numbers, red and green. Fitz was still inside, tinkering with the monitors. Ward was upstairs discussing the situation with SHIELD over a secure channel in the war room.
Meaning she probably shouldn't go upstairs, even just to slip to her bunk. Probably she should find somewhere else to hang out. Climb into the black SUV with the totally discrete SHIELD symbol on the side and pretend it was her van again. Yeah.
Her eyes trailed over Lola as she eased past, and she admitted to herself that, despite the adrenaline crash, she didn't feel safe enough to sleep yet.
"Hey," she said quietly, her voice cracking. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "I, uh, didn't say. But thanks. For getting us out of there in one piece. And I'm totally sorry about the nail marks in your upholstry."
Lola said nothing.
Skye shuffled her feet and looked quickly to make sure FitzSimmons were still occupied. They were. She took a deep breath.
"I just, I was really scared, okay? I didn't expect that. I imagined a lot of things, but I didn't think they'd grab me while we were together, and I didn't think he'd fight for me. I sure didn't think they'd drug him or anything stupid like that. I've been - I've been scared before. But not for other people. Not like that. Not because it was my fault."
She felt a lump swell in her throat, and her breathing had picked up. "This- I don't think I can do this. I'm not a. I'm not him. I'm not a hero. I'm not cut out to be an agent. I'm only good for getting people into trouble, not out of it. Getting people hurt." She sucked in a breath, sharply.
Click.
Blinking, Skye looked down. Lola's door, which had been shut, was now open by an inch.
"Seriously?"
The door swung wider, inviting and impatient all at once.
"Alright, okay." Skye wiped her eyes quickly and got in, pulling the door shut with a quiet click and curling up sideways in the seat with her knees under her chin, ignoring the way that made the shoulder she'd carried Coulson with twinge.
"You won't let me get him hurt again, will you?" she whispered so softly she could barely hear herself. Beneath her, the seat vibrated softly once, even though Lola's engine was firmly off.
Skye pressed her smile into the seat back. "Thanks."
She slept there, curled up like a kid, until they landed.
***
And she definitely never saw Coulson open the photos three days later, after liberating them from Fitz. Because she would have seen Coulson slightly misty-eyed for a moment, and that would have just been embarrassing for everyone.
She did see the commendation he put in her file for rescuing him, because he showed it to her.
"I can't accept this," she said, hands shaking slightly around the tablet, guilt trying to claw up her throat again.
He'd looked at her mildly, like he was looking right into her soul, and said, "Yes, you can."
She did.